The Africa Academy of Management - AOM 2020 (Virtual) Business Meeting
Sunday, 9th August 2020 at
Time: 13:00 – 15:00 EDT
Location: AOM Virtual Meeting
https://aom2020.aom.org/meetings/virtual/ (Then Search for AFAM)
or
2020 AFAM Emerging Scholar Publishing Workshop
9 August 2020, 1:00PM to 2:00PM
In this Address, I reflect on the journey of AFAM with regard to its past, present and future. As a new scholarly community, AFAM is called to the sacred society. Its future therefore should be based on the use of the legitimacy associated with that calling to enact its strategic role – facilitating transformation of African societies – by assuming the paramount duty of parrhesia.
As we usher in a new decade, our nations, institutions, and communities are facing grand challenges that include the impact of climate change, corruption, poor governance, persistent inequality, and political instability which collectively, define the context of management education and practice. In considering the theme of management praxis through the lens of sustainability, responsibility, and ethics, our aim is to explore answers to questions such as:
The Africa Academy of Management (AFAM) is seeking proposals to host its Africa Faculty Development Workshop (AFDW) to be held in mid-2021 (May-June). The 2021 workshop is a continuation of the Africa Faculty Development Workshops that were first held in conjunction with the Academy of Management (AOM) at GIMPA in Accra, Ghana, in 2011 and the University of Rwanda in Kigali in 2012. Subsequent workshops have been held at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Business School, Kumasi, Ghana, and most recently at the American University in Cairo (Egypt).
In many countries managing and developing diversity is on the political and business agenda and has become an area of knowledge and practice in its own right. Yet all too often, diversity management and diversity research has been found to be US-centred, monoculturally infused and biased (e.g., Jonsen et al., 2011; Nishii & Ozbilgin, 2007). At the same time, we know that diversity and equality at work cannot be treated as a unifying concept, nor be interpreted uniformly across cultures and countries. This has also been highlighted, for example, by the former volumes on country perspectives on equal treatment and diversity, edited by Klarsfeld (2010) and Klarsfeld et al. (2014).
We at AFAM have closely monitored the continuing spread of the coronavirus disease known as COVID-19. Nothing matters more at this time than your health and that of the people close to you. We want you to prioritise this, listen to the updating government advice and health authorities where ever you are.
There is increasing interest in economic growth and sustainability in African countries (Africa Report, 2011). The escalation of social, political, and ecological problems on the continent since the end of the 20th century (Neff, 2007; Zoogah, 2013) has been accompanied by commensurate escalation in the continent’s potential to contribute demographically, politically, socially and economically to global prosperity (Africa Report, 2011). While environmental, social and economic performance of most African nations and companies are below the levels of other world regions, the continent has the youngest average age among all on the planet, and is a focus of global investment and development. As a result, the Agenda 2063 and the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) seek not only to harness the large market size of Africa but also to establish mechanisms that enable African economies to create enabling environments that support vibrant businesses without harming people and the natural environment. African conceptualizations of prosperity itself can provide a template for innovative business and public policies that can shape new approaches to development for both the private and public sectors. Engagement of all sectors is critical to the achievement of economic goals, such as those expressed under AfCFTA (Ghadge et. al., 2019) and as the UN Sustainable Development Goals under the UN Global Compact. Private-sector organizations – including corporations and non-governmental agencies – working together with representatives from all levels of government -- highlight the important role of Africa in scaling sustainable solutions to the most pressing problems in the world today.
As a follow-up to the Professional Development Workshop (PDW) on Tribal Identity and the Challenge of Building Inclusive Organizations in Africa, held at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Boston, we decided to organize a special issue to explore in-depth the topic of tribal identity, diversity, and inclusion in African organizations. Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been increased interest of management scholars and practitioners in Africa as indicated by conferences, symposia, and academic publications (Nkomo, Zoogah, & Acquaah, 2015; Walsh, 2011, 2015; Zoogah, Peng, & Woldu, 2015). One of the key motivations is to understand the continent which is “marked by fast growth, limited growth, or no growth at all, Africa’s business, government, and civil sectors all need world-class management.”1 As a result, several scholars have called for examining the different factors that may affect institutional and organizational effectiveness in Africa. Among such factors is the tribe (George et al., 2016; Zoogah, 2016) which undergirds not only socio-economic and political interactions but also entrepreneurial, organizational, and relational aspects of management (Zoogah, 2019). As George et al. (2016: 389) indicate, the profusion and diversity of tribes in Africa “raise interesting questions of managing and motivating employees to perform, as well as challenge the assumptions and boundary conditions that underpin constructs such as trust, justice, and identity.”
We are inviting doctoral students (and interested faculty) to a week-long, intensive social entrepreneurship doctoral seminar. Social entrepreneurship is a vitally important arena of scholarly research and teaching. Doctoral level training is needed to equip researchers in the core concepts and empirical findings of this emerging domain. This seminar involves two of the field’s leading scholars as co-teachers and provides an in-depth survey of recent social entrepreneurship scholarship and its theoretical background. It has been taught at different universities in the United States, including Harvard, and will now be offered for the first time in South Africa. More information about the seminar, in general, is available at https://sedocseminar.org
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